If you miss any content, please leave it as a comment and I will add it to this article.
| Table of Contents |
My library Knowledge Sources To Go is very popular, but it was intended mainly as a thematically grouped guide to standard sources and was provided by me as a PDF file. For certain topics, however, there is so much content that I can no longer include it in that document, as it cannot continue to grow forever.
For this reason, I have decided to handle such topics in individual community articles like this one instead.
Overview
ServiceNow instances can be like cars—two people can own the same model, year, and make of a vehicle, but depending on how they use, maintain, and customize it, they could have two entirely different experiences with the car. While ServiceNow monitors your instance hardware in their data centers, every organization makes configurations to their environments that can affect them individually. If left completely unattended, small issues can build up over time and can cause performance problems, difficulty upgrading to new releases, or issues when deploying additional applications. With effective maintenance, you can improve both the upgradeability and scalability of your ServiceNow instance, as well as ensure that you don’t have performance issues related to your configurations.
Entry point to the official product documentation
Optimize your ServiceNow estate
This presentation lays out 11 key recommendations for optimizing the ServiceNow platform and instances via Instance, Table, and Data management for: Existing customers with large instance, new customers implementing ServiceNow - Large Enterprise Implementations.
Instance Performance Management
Instance Performance Management in ServiceNow is crucial for ensuring that the platform runs smoothly, efficiently, and can scale with business demands. It involves proactively monitoring system health, optimizing configurations, and addressing performance bottlenecks before they impact users. Effective performance management not only improves response times and user satisfaction but also helps prevent costly downtime, supports high availability, and ensures that critical business processes relying on ServiceNow continue to operate without disruption.
Entry point to the official product documentation
Fine-tune your ServiceNow platform with regular performance administration
This Success Playbook will help you keep your ServiceNow instance running at optimal performance by explaining how to:
- Perform the activities your instance needs to give you the most value
- Review your log data for errors and warnings
- Maintain your tables for peak performance
Reviewed and maintained resource page for most common, high-impacting Performance issues on ServiceNow instances.
Trainings & Courses
Performance Troubleshooting Overview
In today's professional environments, performance of every application is critical to getting work done. Admins are under pressure to make sure their digital spaces are operating at a peak level. Knowing where to look for issues in an instance and then identifying the issues is a skill every administrator should have. The next step is to react quickly and address the problems that impact a healthy user experience. This video series course covers several techniques and tools to debug problems that can arise in your ServiceNow instance.
Navigating ServiceNow Instance Performance Series
A four part series for partners to help you learn strategies, tool and techniques to navigate through ServiceNow instance performance.
Articles & Blog Posts
2017-06-17 by @Mwatkins
Instance Performance Maintenance and Administration
Instance performance administration, or "Instance Hygiene" is probably not something that is at the forefront of our customer ServiceNow administrators. It is easily overlooked because the platform is pretty tolerant to the various demands users put on it. That said, with considered planning and periodic maintenance activities, you can ensure that your instance scales well and runs in an optimal fashion.
2021-10-25 by @andrewknox
How to troubleshoot a slow transaction?
If you have a UI transaction that is slower than you would expect, follow these steps to identify what part of the platform the slowness is coming from. The investigation can then focus on the correct area of the platform wether it be ACLs, business rules, database, or client-side etc.
2023-02-12 by Maik Skoddow
Revival of the "System Diagnostics" Homepage
Those readers who have known ServiceNow a little longer and are more in the role of a system administrator may still be familiar with the "System Diagnostics" homepage. I always liked that overview, as it provides a lot of interesting information, especially about the health status of all individual nodes (aka application servers) of an ServiceNow instance. And since we all know that homepages starting with the Utah release are no longer supported, I wanted to convert this particular homepage into a dashboard and save it to an update set for further usage in my coming projects.
Data Maintenance
Data maintenance and data management in ServiceNow are critical processes that ensure the accuracy, completeness, and reliability of information stored within the platform. ServiceNow provides various built-in functionalities to maintain data quality. Effective data management involves classifying, organizing, preserving, protecting, and maintaining data throughout its lifecycle, from collection to archiving or deletion when no longer needed. By following best practices and utilizing ServiceNow's native capabilities, organizations can maintain high-quality data that supports improved decision-making, increased operational efficiency, and enhanced customer satisfaction.
Entry point to the official product documentation
Mastering Data Management in ServiceNow: from tracking growth to efficient cleanup
In this Knowledge Base article, we provide a holistic guide to managing your data in ServiceNow, covering everything from monitoring database growth to optimizing large tables. Explore best practices for self-managed data cleanup, learn about the available tools and features, and gain insights on how to tackle your largest tables effectively. Arm yourself and team with the knowledge to make informed decisions about data management for smoother operations.
Articles & Blog Posts
2018-06-19 by Tim Woodruff
Improving Performance on Older Instances with Table Rotation
If your instance has been around for a while, you've probably built up a few tables that are quite extensive. The good news is - there are steps that you can take to both mitigate, and even preemptively prevent this issue.
2018-11-12 by ServiceNow Support
Mass-Deletion and Excess Data Management Recommendations
There may be occasions when it is desirable or necessary to mass-delete data from a table. You may want to perform this deletion with a predefined set of conditions, or you may want to simply wipe the table clean. Regardless of the situation, excepting corrupt or inaccessible data, there is a deletion method that will suit your needs.
2020-11-05 by GTSPerformance
Demystifying table rotation, extension, and table cleaner
One of the areas of the ServiceNow platform which doesn't appear to be particularly well understood (or documented) is table rotation. This article will attempt to demystify this concept as well as discussing its relationship to table cleaner. In some cases this might help improve the performance/scalability of new ServiceNow implementations and, even if this doesn't apply directly to the reader, its always good to understand how things work under the covers.
2021-01-13 by GTSPerformance
Best Practices to manage and maintain Task table
The task table is one of the core tables in the ServiceNow platform. It provides a series of standard fields used on each of the tables that extend task, such as the Incident [incident] and Problem [problem] tables. In addition, any table which extends task can take advantage of task-specific functionality for driving tasks. By default the task table uses the 'Table per Hierarchy' extension model on most instances. It is usually one of the biggest tables by size and the busiest table by usage.
2021-05-21 by ServiceNow Support
A script to automatically clean up sys_audit_delete and sys_audit_relation records
If you delete a record, you can restore it by finding the records in the Audit Deleted Records [sys_audit_delete] list, opening the form, and clicking on the Undelete Record UI action. Unchecked, these tables can grow very large and can cause wider performance issues within a ServiceNow instance. At some point, we might need to consider whether a record deleted many years ago will ever be restored, and is there any value in maintaining these audit records.
2023-02-07 by ServiceNow Support
How to recover deleted data from ServiceNow instance
If the data is deleted or missing from ServiceNow; there are lots of if and buts in recovering the data. This depends on How/When it was deleted to determine HOW/IF the data can be retrieved.
2023-07-05 by Mark Roethof
Maintain Attachments and Attachment Documents
One of the biggest contributors I've experienced so far at multiple customers: Attachment Documents [sys_attachment_doc]. Some parts of what I am going to share can already be found in some kind of shape on the ServiceNow Community, though some parts I haven't seen any publications on!
Videos
2023-03-31 by TechnoMonk
Mastering System Data Management with ServiceNow: ServiceNow Delete and Update Jobs Explained
System Data Management is a powerful feature of ServiceNow that allows users to manage large volumes of data in a systematic and efficient manner. It provides a set of tools and features that enable users bulk update and delete data without writting any script also with rollback option to revert the action. Additionally, it provides functionalities to perform data updates and deletions in a safe and secure manner.
2023-08-10 by ServiceNow Universe
Table Cleaner | Data Archiving | Performance | Instance | ServiceNow
Table Cleaner and Data Archiving in ServiceNow helps in keeping the tables clean and improve the performance of the instance.
2024-10-10 by ServiceNow Community
How can the Platform rebuild tables to reduce free space within them?
From Utah, the platform has an inbuilt mechanism, called DB Compaction, which aims to maintain free space within a table and will automatically rebuild any tables within the instance that meet certain requirements.
2025-01-24 by ServiceNow Community
Unlocking the Power of sys_audit for Effective System Auditing
Led by Adam Stout, the session covered the essentials of sys audit, including history views, the timeline view for CMDB tables, advanced setup and configuration, and restoring deleted records. Participants also explored analytics and reporting capabilities, followed by a live Q&A and demonstration of sys audit in action.
2025-03-25 by ServiceNow Community
On March 20th, our Platform Fundamentals Academy, alongside Janeil Schocks and Justina Buzza from the Cloud Automation team, hosted an insightful session on Effective Data Management and data management tools, tips, and tricks to gain control of your data growth.
2025-05-15 by ServiceNow Community
Care and feeding of your instances
What you should be doing on a daily, weekly, monthly quarterly, annual basis to keep your instance running smoothly. Four time community MPV Ishaan Shoor and certified implementation specialist, Adefisayo Akande with lay it all out for you. Bonus -- tips for optimal CMDB
Server Side Scripting
Performance in server-side scripting is essential because these scripts run directly on the server and can impact the entire platform’s speed, scalability, and user experience. Poorly optimized scripts - such as inefficient queries, unnecessary loops, or excessive GlideRecord calls - can increase response times, strain system resources, and even lead to performance degradation for all users. Given that server-side operations handle critical business logic and integrations, ensuring performant scripting is vital to maintain system stability, meet SLAs, and provide a smooth, reliable experience at scale.
Articles & Blog Posts
2019-03-29 by ServiceNow Support
How to get the Top 10 values from a table using the GlideAggregate function
The following is an example script that demonstrates how you can determine the top N records from a table. For example, sometimes you might want to check and see which task has the most journal entries, or the most attachments. The following script shows how this can be done using the GlideAggregate function. Getting the top N values from a table can help to identify some possible health issues (eg., tasks with an excessive number of worknotes or emails with an excessive number of attachments)
2020-06-13 by GTSPerformance
Performance Best Practices for Server-side Coding in ServiceNow
The goal of this article is to address some common types of scripting issues that can cause performance problems. While ServiceNow has many low-code or no-code development options, any implementation will still require the writing of some code. Coding in ServiceNow obviously provides a great deal of power to enable rich features and to delight your customers. However, it also has the potential to cause serious issues if not properly designed.
2020-12-03 by GTSPerformance
Performance Best Practice for Before Query Business Rules
This article assumes you are very familiar with scripting in ServiceNow already. It will discuss the performance implications and best practices regarding Before Query Business Rules.
2021-06-01 by GTSPerformance
Caching data to improve performance
In this article we will look more closely at the type of caching strategies which are commonly used and the difference these can make to transactional (and therefore instance) performance. To help make this relatable we will describe this in the context of a customer escalation recently worked on by our team. Although this customer had a use case specific to them, the concepts in this article can be applied in a wide variety of scenarios.
2022-12-01 by GTSPerformance
Performance Best Practices for Coding Comma Separated Lists
That article explains the risks of building comma separated lists and what you can do to avoid them through adopting certain coding best practices.
Integration Performance
Strong integration performance is essential because it affects the speed, reliability, and scalability of connected systems. When integrations are poorly optimized, they can cause delays, timeouts, and data mismatches, which undermine user experience and overall efficiency. Optimized performance ensures that data moves smoothly and processes operate seamlessly, even during peak loads, minimizing system strain and avoiding bottlenecks that could interrupt vital business operations.
Articles & Blog Posts
2017-02-17 by @Mwatkins
Inbound integrations performance design on the ServiceNow platform
This article addresses some concerns that occur when troubleshooting (or designing) an inbound integration. This article uses the term "inbound" to mean an integration where ServiceNow is the provider as opposed to the consumer. The primary audience of this document is customer developers who build integrations that pull data out of, or push data into, ServiceNow
2020-10-15 by GTSPerformance
Outbound Integrations Using SOAP / REST: Performance Best Practices
Getting the design of an integration correct can be hugely important. Poor design can impact performance, cause end user frustration, or even lead to service affecting events within an instance. This article discusses the various options available along with the pros and cons of each approach – hopefully this makes deciding how to develop outbound integrations that little bit easier.
Efficient Database Operations
Understanding how to perform efficient database operations in ServiceNow is essential for maintaining optimal system performance and ensuring data reliability. Inefficient queries or data handling can cause slow load times, impact user satisfaction, and put unnecessary strain on the platform as data grows. By following best practices - such as using indexed fields, minimizing complex scripts, and effectively utilizing GlideRecord - developers and administrators can build fast, scalable solutions that support business demands while providing a seamless user experience.
Articles & Blog Posts
2017-01-17 by @Mwatkins
Database Performance: Improving Slow OR and JOIN Queries
This document is targeted at advanced developer level audience. I will discuss various methods to solve two problems. The first problem is when there is a query against a single table with conditions against multiple fields joined by an OR. The second problem is when a query requires a JOIN between two tables. Both solutions involve running multiple simple queries instead of a single complex query and splicing the results via script - effectively emulating a SQL sub-query.
2017-06-21 by @Mwatkins
Performance Best Practice for Efficient Queries - Top 10 Practices
The goal of this article is to address some common types of configuration issues that can lead to slow query performance problems on the database.
Videos & Podcasts
2023-01-19 by Secretary of Simplification
ServiceNow – Indexes – Quick Guide
If you're a ServiceNow Administrator or Developer, you need to ensure queries to your tables are performant, and for that you need table indexes. This video is the second and last part of a series providing an overview of indexes. Part 1 introduced indexes and included a simple demonstration of how they can dramatically improve query times.
